Twang (23 page)

I played with the sweetener packets while her words rattled in my head like marbles in a cigar box. At last, I got a great big gulp of air down into my lungs. “I know, Tonilynn. I’m truly grateful for all that Mike and the folks at Flint have done for me. And I love the music, the singing, and my fans. But I never realized how hard it was going to be.” My hands were shaking and I twined them together in my lap. “When I sang ‘Daddy, Don’t Come Home’ last night, I lost it up onstage. That’s never happened to me before, Tonilynn.” I felt my heart accelerating. “I can’t sing about my dysfunctional childhood anymore.”

“I know it takes guts to sing about that stuff you’ve shared with me.”

I just shook my head. There was so much Tonilynn didn’t know about what lay beneath and between the lines. I thought about what the writers at Flint Studios worked up for my upcoming CD cover; “The music calls Jenny Cloud home. She gives us an intimate peek into the dark corners, the heartache she witnessed in childhood.”

My career had been spawned on lyrics about fear and tears, on dysfunction, and Mike’s goal was still to sell me as a wounded artist. But I wasn’t a totally unwilling participant, was I? The stuff my management team came up with was not just media hype they made up to sell records.

Tonilynn pushed her empty plate back. She dug in her purse, applied fresh lipstick, then reached across for my hand. “Hon, I know I sound like a broken record, but what you need
to do is just ask Jesus to help you dig up all those hurts, that bad stuff, once and for all, and deal with it.”

It made me queasy thinking we were going to get into this discussion yet again, and I pulled my hand away. “I know I sound like a broken record, too, but I don’t
want
to dig it up. I’m not going to.”

“It’s the only way to healing, Jennifer.” Tonilynn’s brown eyes went soft with concern. “Having a father like you did, do, you probably can’t relate to a loving heavenly Father, but believe me, God cares and he understands our hurt. He used my hurts as a way of ministering to others when I finally looked them in the eye, and he can use yours. Pull up whatever it is that’s still buried and use it to write a song.”

I thought, fleetingly, of that girl on the front row with black mascara running into her mouth as I sang “Daddy, Don’t Come Home.” There was definitely a connection, and maybe my lyrics had empowered her to make some change. That was good. But what about me? Without peace, what was anything else worth?

“Well, I don’t care,” I said. “I don’t care if I ever sing again.”

“You’re fibbing.” Tonilynn shook her head, smiling. “I see you when you come off that stage, hon, and you’ve got a glow like Moses when he came down the mountain. He was so full of the glory he had to wear a veil over it so folks wouldn’t get blinded.”

I shrugged, but Tonilynn wouldn’t let it go. “You brought down the house last night! Mike says they’re playing ‘Daddy, Don’t Come Home’ all over the place. Speaking of that one, I don’t believe I’ve heard you talk about the story behind it.”

My stomach lurched. “No more stories about the stories behind the songs. They’re too real.”

“But it’s got to be real for an audience to feel it! Surely you know that by now. Nobody gets to be a multiplatinum
recording artist just by singing pretty. Your songs were hard won, Jennifer, and they’re your gifts to this broken world. Your beautiful gifts.”

“Well,” I said, getting to my feet again, “it doesn’t feel beautiful to me. Feels like a black hole sucking my soul in, and I’m quitting.”

“You can’t.” Tonilynn reached across to grab my hand and pulled me back into my seat. “I know some things may be hard, but what would we do without Jenny Cloud? You’re
touching
people! The world would be so much poorer without your songs. You’ve got to understand, hon, in God’s economy, nothing we experience in this earthly life is wasted! Please let him pour his love out on hurting, vulnerable people through you. He can make something beautiful and good come out of your ugliest experiences, if you’ll just let him! I’m begging you, just ask him to help you dig it all up! You have a message and a mission with your music.”

It bothered me when Tonilynn started going on and on about this religious stuff like I agreed with her, like we were some little private God-club. I took the first bite of my pizza, but it was sawdust in my mouth.

“I didn’t even finish high school, Jennifer.” Tonilynn shook her head. “But the Lord helped me get my beauty degree, and while I’m beautifying the outsides of my clients, I share my journey and let him take care of their insides. I’m like one of those full-service gas stations we used to have.”

Tonilynn paused, and when I didn’t respond it didn’t dampen her zeal.

“Sometimes I think about having my tattoos removed, but then I think, no, these are my battle scars. They’re a road map of my testimony. See? People can
use
their pain, Jennifer Anne Clodfelter, and your songs about what you’ve been through are powerful. Combine that with your incredible voice and
your looks and the way you can hold an audience in the palm of your hand, and there ain’t nobody who can’t say you don’t have all the perfect ingredients for what I like to call a
divinely appointed mission
!

“I’m constantly praying for you, and I know you can triumph if you’ll just reach out and grab hold of his hand.”

I sat there, blocking out Tonilynn’s voice. When you started listening to someone like her, so persuasive in her simple way, you forgot what it cost. You forgot you were trading pieces of yourself for friendship. I needed some thinking time before I did something I’d regret.

When the Eagle returned me to Nashville three weeks later, I drove straight to Harmony Hill and climbed into bed without unpacking and without undressing any more than slipping my boots off. I didn’t listen to the radio. I didn’t watch television. I didn’t want anything that reminded me of being human. I just lay in bed, looking at the ceiling, the thought of continuing to live like this intolerable.

I decided to ignore my phone after a flurry of calls from Mike and Tonilynn. They wanted too much, were sucking even more of the life out of me with their chatter and questions. Mike’s words amounted to reports of what a hit our Texas tour had been, that like “Honky-Tonk Tomcat,” “Daddy, Don’t Come Home” was getting tons of drive-time play on radio stations across the country, and had made the Billboard Hot 100. Tonilynn kept offering to come pick me up and carry me out to celebrate. She wanted to take me to the Douglas Corner Café just a short drive from downtown, or to Bobbie’s Dairy Dip on Charlotte Pike, or to Sambuca, a swanky place with lobster enchiladas and live music. I lied and told her I had a lot of work in the studio to tend to.

“I’ll miss you, hon,” she chirped. “You’ve got my number if you want to talk.”

Toward the end of the second day of my hibernation, my head began to ache so bad I could hardly keep my eyes open. I got even more irritable. All I wanted was to leave the past in the past, and, boy, did that seem to be a losing battle. I told myself if Tonilynn truly cared, she’d stop saying, “Ask Jesus to help you dig it all up.” Why would anyone in their right mind invite their world to crash down like that?

If Jesus truly wanted to help me, well, he could take the shovel and whack my father upside the head with it. Put us all out of our misery.

“Religious nut!” I fussed out loud. “Fanatic!” There was no option but to keep buried every shred of anything that had to do with my sleazebag of a father. I congratulated myself on the fact that I’d been successful in keeping a particular incident buried fairly deep, the one from which the merest hint could send a cold claw walking up my spine.

I shuffled into the bathroom and leaned against the counter for a while, feeling like I might vomit as I smelled the hibiscus hand soap. When I caught a glimpse of a painting of a cow skull with flowers spilling out of it, a gift from Tonilynn, almost instantly I felt ashamed of myself for fussing about someone who only wanted my good.

I hobbled downstairs to the kitchen for a glass of water, and drank it standing at the kitchen sink. My eyes fell on back issues of
Music Row
,
Country Weekly
, and
Nashville Scene
on top of a pile of junk mail next to the telephone. On a whim I sat down at the breakfast table to leaf through them, pausing at a big splashy photo of blonde-haired, bright-eyed Taylor Swift laughing at something.

Taylor was from Pennsylvania and had moved to Nashville when she was thirteen. She was a household name like me,
and I’d seen and heard plenty about her, including the story of her breakthrough in 2006 with the hit song “Tim McGraw.” Her self-titled debut album had sold more than 3.5 million copies, and her album
Fearless
produced the hit singles “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me.” Not to mention she’d won Top New Female Vocalist at the 2008 CMT Awards and had been nominated for a Grammy by the Academy of Country Music as best new female vocalist. Besides all the success, it struck me how peaceful Taylor seemed. Where I was all angst and heart-wrenching lyrics, Taylor had a freshness that was appealing. She was light and playful. I didn’t know exactly what to call her, maybe not innocent, but she sure looked happy and carefree.

All of a sudden, it was like I’d switched on the lamp after a long bad dream. If I could be like Taylor and write upbeat country pop songs, I’d be happy! She was proof that writing lyrics spawned in a troubled past was not a prerequisite for doing well in the country music scene. A change of image was what I needed for my passion and my sanity to coexist.

When Tonilynn brought up that foolishness about digging up the past, about Jesus and Freud, I’d tell her that the horrors of a person’s reality could actually do them in, that true happiness lay in burying ugly stuff really deep and keeping it there. It was just common sense that a person couldn’t undo what was done to them. In fact, I’d been pondering this idea about self-fulfilling prophecy; simply put, a person will act like who she believes herself to be. I’d heard reimaging referred to as “getting your game on,” and it was, in my opinion, a very sound and effective solution when dealing with terrible things.

Talk about a makeover! I was a big, blank canvas, and here in these magazines was the inspiration to paint the new Jenny Cloud. I’d model myself after Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood, another fresh, young country music star. I’d
also study up on Reba McEntire, Kellie Pickler, and Faith Hill. Their artistry would fuel my own. I’d pick and choose my attributes; upbeat, sassy, gutsy, chic, giggly, breathless. I’d dream up Jenny Cloud’s happy-girl persona, and shut down, totally and completely, the file marked “ugly episodes in Jenny Cloud’s past.”

I felt like dancing, like my only limitation was within my own mind. My headache disappeared, and I got up to go take a bubble bath.

To be the new Jenny Cloud, I needed big blonde hair, cut into flirty layers. And dramatic makeup. No more scrubbed clean, dark silken-locked, angst-ridden, soul-wrenching persona. Good-bye to serious and somber. I’d aim for adjectives like “lighthearted” and “playful.” Speaking of playful, I decided I’d go get some long, acrylic nails, but nixed that idea as soon as I thought about strumming my Washburn.

I was stepping out of the tub a few minutes later when Tonilynn called.

“Wow!” she said. “You sure sound better.”

“I feel better. Hey, mind if I borrow your pink cowgirl boots? I want to see how they look with my denim miniskirt.” Despite being a good seven inches taller than five-foot Tonilynn, we both had wide, size-eight feet.

“ ’Course you can. You going out dancing?”

I laughed. “I’m just bored with my Minnie Pearl crossed with Maybelle Carter look. I want something flirty.”

“You’re hunting a man.”

“I’m hunting outfits to wear during my performances. Remember that flouncy little green dress I bought in California, with the spaghetti straps? The one you made me buy in that boutique because you said it brought out my eyes?”

“The one you’ve never worn?”

“Yep. How do you think that would look with some really high-heeled black pumps?”

“I think all the men would be dropping like flies.”

That helped ease the transition to my next question. “Will you do a more playful hairdo on me?”

Tonilynn got quiet. “What did you have in mind?” she asked finally.

“Swingy blonde layers.”

“Whoa now, Jennifer. I love your long, black silky tresses. You look like an Indian princess.”

“I don’t want to look like an Indian princess anymore.”

“Well, okay . . . I reckon we might could do some swingy layers if we get a real powerful styling product. However, your coloring definitely wouldn’t do for blonde.”

It wasn’t easy to let go of that mental image of myself with a blonde mane, tousled, tumbling as I strummed my guitar wildly, but I knew how stubborn Tonilynn was. “Okay, fine,” I said. “Playful dark layers, then. Listen, I’ve been studying country singers and a lot of them are aiming toward a more mainstream pop sound. I’m sure you’ve heard them talking about ‘the new contemporary country sound that spans genres’? So, I’m thinking it’s time for me to make a change all around and I’m trying to change my image so I’ll look the part.”